Oklahoma Joe: New 'Twisters' movie stirs tornado memories for Oklahomans

“Twisters” will be released next week. I’ve already booked my tickets for when the movie first opens here.

The trailers indicate it will have different actors but similarities to the original “Twister,” the 1996 blockbuster that sparked an international craze about storm chasing that included the birth of tornado tourism companies. I hope the new movie filmed mostly in Oklahoma doesn’t heighten that craze, but I suspect it will after people see fire-lit tornadoes on the big screen.

We in Oklahoma don’t need a tourism company to chase tornadoes. We have lived through too many of them.

As I’ve written in this column, I’ll never forget my first time seeing a tornado in June 1969. My mother, Pauline Hight, and I saw clouds swirling above our heads east of Guthrie. We didn’t have TV weather forecasters or their storm chasers telling us to take cover. We just knew that we needed to go inside to protect ourselves just in case the tornado didn’t spare us or our home that day.

It sparked a fascination and sense of awe with severe weather that continues today. I thought about a career in meteorology before journalism lured me away.

Even so, the flying cows, houses and everything else portrayed in “Twister” seemed laughable back then. Then May 1999 changed everything.

I saw the massive storm barreling toward central Oklahoma that early May. Working at The Oklahoman then, I was soon leading coverage of the devastating storm that produced 74 tornadoes in Oklahoma and Kansas. One stayed on the ground for 1 hours and became the strongest-known tornado on record, with winds of more than 300 mph. According to the National Severe Storms Laboratory, 46 people died and 800 were injured. As the overall supervisor of the victims’ coverage during the tornado outbreak, I drove through the Moore area and saw the swath of devastation. The record tornado, sometimes more than a mile wide, had turned everything into mush. At one point, the storm spawned other tornadoes that marched side by side with the bigger one.

The 12-story building that housed The Oklahoman and now American Fidelity Assurance Co. had been built to withstand high winds. I used to tell interns and others on tours that small tornadoes had hit it but caused little damage. The tornado in May 1999 would have leveled it to its foundation.

What Oklahomans also witnessed in 2013 and what we saw this year with more outbreaks continued the mindset that tornadoes carry deadly consequences.

That fascination has also led me to become the family weather guy. I regularly warn my wife and daughters about forecasts in their areas. I check the forecast continually before flying anywhere, too, and anticipate weather issues before and during flights. Part of the reason is that I was on a plane flying through a severe thunderstorm when it was returning to Oklahoma City from Des Moines, Iowa. At that time, pilots didn’t avoid storms; they flew through them. The plane shook violently, dropped several hundred feet suddenly and then flew back up into the storm at least three times before being cleared for landing. People were screaming. A few had pulled out bibles and were praying loudly.

I’ll be glad to watch the movie “Twisters” from the comfort of the Tinseltown movie theater in July when severe weather here is unusual.

But, in Oklahoma, you just don’t know. That has become more apparent considering the impact of climate change and what we witnessed with the severe storm that produced hurricane-force winds on June 25. We must respect that reality over what a movie can show us.

Joe Hight is director and a member of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, an editor who led a Pulitzer Prize-winning project, the journalism ethics chair at the University of Central Oklahoma, president/owner of Best of Books, author of “Unnecessary Sorrow” and lead writer/editor of “Our Greatest Journalists.”

Copyright © 2024 BridgeTower Media. All Rights Reserved.